amuckart

Hi Korokan, I think it's worth saying up-front that it's really great that you're asking these questions. Industrial machinery is a whole different world with different rules that aren't obvious until you've been there and seen them. That's because what the factory is doing is wholesaling industrial machinery and industrial machinery shipped wholesale comes with a completely different set of expectations than single-machine retail. You wouldn't by a CNC bridge mill from alibaba and expect it to unbox it and just have it work. You'd expect to have to install it, level it, set it up, calibrate it, integrate it with your design workflow etc. etc. etc. Industrial sewing machines are just like that, except that most people don't have expectations of CNC mills that come from having a small domestic model that they can take out of the box and have Just Work (not that that wouldn't be awesome, mind you!). The other thing about industrial sewing machines is that by and large they get set up to do one thing, and they do that one thing day in day out until they're completely worn out. Factories that need more than one type of seam sewn that requires a different weight or colour of thread, or a different length stitch, will buy a separate machine to do each thing, because doing that is cheaper than interrupting workflow to reconfigure a machine. You can see this in the depressing videos of Chinese jeans factories. That's where small single-maker shops are different, for someone producing bespoke goods in limited numbers an extra machine represents a significant outlay, and if you've only got one machine operator, the time lost reconfiguring the machine is comparatively small. Even so, most folks will have two or three industrial machines of different types for different work. Factories that employ tens or hundreds of these machines have in-house mechanics whose full time job is looking after them. They guy who starts the narration of this great video about Puritan machines does nothing but service them for the shoe factory that uses them. Puritan machines haven't been made new for years now. The dealers do ask for samples, and do do extensive testing of the machines before they order lots of them and put their brand on them and part of their process with that is working out how much work they need to put in to set the machine up and get it sewing properly for the work the customer wants to do with it, whether they can get the factory to manufacture the right sort of feet and plates and so on, and what the quality control coming out of the factory is like (it varies hugely from factory to factory). Something that isn't obvious at all to folks who learn about 441 machines from this forum is that they were never designed as heavy leather stitchers. They're designed for heavy textile work, sewing things like cargo parachutes and harnesses. There are even ones that are specifically set up to sew cloth polishing wheels. They were first set up to sew leather by Ferdco, and the guy who founded that company patented some of the modifications that are required. That was about 20 years ago. To set up a 441 to sew leather you have to swap out the feed dogs, needle plate and presser feet, you also have to set it up for thick thread, make sure you're using properly aligned leather point needles, and power it with a low-speed high-torque motor. I hope that helps a bit.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Out of the box it had been assembled, but that's it. It wasn't timed and the feed was out of sync.

Your No.6 will do pretty much anything in leather that a Cobra 4 will do unless you're running into the limits of the throat depth (in which case a Campbell Randall will be worse) or you need to sew right up at the edge of funny shaped things that can only be done on a cylinder arm machine. I had a No.6 and I regret letting it go.

I bought a machine direct from China. It was a Hightex brand, which is what Cowboy machines are called outside of the US. The short version is this: If you are buying this for use in a business, buy one from a local well-respected shop who will set it up and support & service it. Buying direct from China is a Bad Idea if you need the machine up, running, and making money in a specific timeframe. For me, as a reasonably mechanically competent amateur who has torn down and re-built other machines, it was worthwhile. The cost was around half of what it would have cost me to get a machine from Cowboy or Cobra shipped to New Zealand, but if I were in the USA it is not something I would consider. I bought via a reseller here, so as a private individual not a business I had the benefit of NZ's strong consumer protection laws if it went wrong, but even so It was almost 5 months before I had all the parts I needed. Because of screw-ups with the shipping I didn't get the correct motor and speed reducer with the machine and it took ages for them to arrive. It took me a full day to clean the shipping grease off, assemble the stand and table and get the machine mounted and oiled. There were no instructions at all, and the assembly of the table was non-obvious (which is to say that the holes drilled in it matched neither the machine nor the stand, and I ended up building a new table). After that it took me many hours to get the machine timed, feeding properly, sewing in the same holes in reverse that it did forwards, and so on. I was lucky, my machine wasn't missing any bits, came with all the feet I needed, and didn't require a total teardown and rebuild like the Hightex 441 another NZer on this forum bought. Even without any major things going wrong with my machine mechanically, I would have been completely screwed without the Juki 441 engineer's manual. Even with that it was tricky getting the machine set up because the timing marks the Juki manual references don't exist on my machine. If you're comfortable with tearing down and re-building walking foot sewing machines and you know how to time them from scratch and you have the time and tools to do so, then getting a machine direct from China can work, but it's a gamble. You can't count on getting any kind of support from the factory, and as Wiz has pointed out getting the additional harness feet is expensive and they aren't guaranteed to fit the specific machine you end up with.

Bob Kovar at Toledo Industrial probably has, or knows where to find, what you need.

G'day, I'm glad you found the manual useful. Yes I think you did buy some post beds from me. I hope they worked out Ok for you. You can get 331LR needles in size 230 only, from Sewing Supplies in Auckland. I dealt with them by email and they were always really great. Do you have photos of your machine?

Is it the top thread pulling the bottom thread up, or the bottom thread pulling the top thread down? If your thread path is Ok, and your tension on the top is working Ok, it might be the bobbin winder or bottom tension. If your bobbin thread isn't wound absolutely consistently you could be having issues where the tension is 'spiking' due to uneven wind.

Yep, I'm coming to realise that the threads in this machine are a bit special. That really surprises me because I figured that at the point where you're cloning a machine it would just be easier to use a common thread standard instead of having to replicate whatever weird ones the original manufacturer used. For that matter I'm a bit surprised that a late 20th century machine still uses all those weird threads. I've got a parts list for the TSC-441 and it's a mix of metric and imperial and god knows what.

Thanks Bob. I guess I was hoping that since it's 2013, not 1913, that the screws were an actual standard standard. I was aware that Singer screws were almost all weird and proprietary but that's not universal in sewing machines - my Seiko and Pfaff machines seem to have standard threads in the various holes they have. I'll just drill out the three holes I want to mount things on and put metric helicoils in them. It'll be easier than finding a source for Juki screws just to build a sensible table mounting. Cheers.

Can anyone tell me what thread standard is used throughout the Cowboy 4500? There are various tapped holes on the machine that are neither M6 nor 1/4" and it's driving me nuts trying to figure out what sort of machine screw I need for them. Thanks.

Excellent find. I am intensely envious :-) It's not a No.6 and it doesn't look like the No.2 I have. It also doesn't look anything like the No.4 in the catalogue that was posted on here a while ago, so I'm not sure. If you look at the parts they should have part numbers and a model abbreviation cast into them - the No.6 parts all have "HM6" for example. That should tell you what it is.

Adam, who made that one? Thanks.

It's getting powdercoated gloss black, then I'll pinstripe it. I'm still toying with whether or not to get the main balance wheel stripped or not. There's a reasonable amount of the original decoration on it, and I'm toying with having it stripped and redone by a professional signwriter.

Here's a view of a Pearson No.6 Harness Machine that most folks won't have seen before. It's off to the powdercoater tomorrow.

Sorry man, I haven't been on here for ages. I've just emailed it to you.

Gudelon is pretty much the coolest project ever, and high on my list of places I really really want to visit as a reenactor. Given what I know of the people involved, and my experiences of doing medieval reenactment for the last 13 or so years, I'd say that there are likely to be two main reasons they're using modern harness: firstly that there's almost no concrete information on what 12th-13th century harness looks/works like; and secondly that modern harness is probably far better for the animals they're using. There are also issues that you can't really find 12th-century equivalent horses any more, modern horse breeds are quite different. It's an anachronism, but it's a second-order effect for the work they're doing, i.e. it doesn't have a direct impact on the outcome of the build the way, say, using power tools instead of medieval stonemason's tools would. The only resource I'm aware of that's easily available is the Museum of London book The Medieval Horse and its Equipment.

Pfaff made a variant of their model 35 machine that has reverse. I have one, but I've never tried to put any high-shank feet on it so I don't know if they fit or not. They also made a non-reversing version with a lower wheel feed rather than a drop feed.

This is interesting to me as there are a couple of 3-phase clicking presses nearby. What sort of HP rating do the motors in them usually have? I know nothing at all about the inner workings of clicking presses.

I've seen others use small French edgers for this kind of thing.

Thank you both. So far I haven't needed binder clips, the contact adhesive I'm using is more than strong enough. The difficulty I'm having is in getting the gusse to form neatly. How much sewing allowance do you leave on the gusset, I.e. how big is the turned out lip? Thanks.

Hi all, I'm making my first gusseted bag, it's a man bag for me. I'm wondering if the leather I'm thinking of using for the gusset is too thin, it's 1mm chrome tan calf. It seems pretty strong but I don't know how it's going to wear in practice, so I'd appreciate any advice you good folks can give me. Thanks.

I'm making my first gusseted bag, and I'm wondering if anyone can share tips on getting the gusset to go around the corners neatly without wrinkling or getting bad folds that make it impossible to machine sew? I'm using chrome tanned leather for this project, so wet forming isn't an option. Thanks.

Judjung by the picture, that's not in bad shape, all I'd do to it is polish the channels if they need it and be done with it. If its dirty, just wash it in some very hot very soapy water, dry quickly, spray with WD-40 to displace the moisture in the hinge, wipe downand oil lightly.

Do you have pictures of it? What I do depends an awful lot on the state of the tool to begin with.

Hi Art, Thanks. I wasn't sure I was reading your previous post right. A while ago I asked what left foot was used for and was told it was to allow the roller guide to get right up against the side of the inner foot, which made good sense. When I was sitting staring the bits I'd pulled out of my 441 in the process of getting the @!$#%!@# thing going, I got to thinking about the lower needle guide in my #6 and the upper guides that can be had for it for using thin needles. That got me thinking about grinding a feed dog down so it would either run under the slot/stirrup/holster plates or so that it was just the same width as the inner foot and opening up the slotted plate to match. I might still have a go at that if I can find a cheaper source of bits to experiment with in NZ. Even getting them in from China is a bit pricey just to have a play with. There are a few. If you go to google patent search and search for "Ferdinand Jean Blanc" they show up[1]. The results I got from that were: US3779184 Feed dog awl assembly US5425320 Needle guide components for a sewing machine US4947773 Thread ring guide for a needle bar US5762014 Needle guide components for a sewing machine US5520127 Needle guide components for a sewing machine US4991526 Bed plate insert and presser foot, each having a guide surface for laterally supporting a sewing machine needle US3759202 Self-centering foot for sewing Mr Jean-Blanc had obviously put a lot of thought into how to make these machines sew better, and it's sad to see Ferdco closing their doors. I do hope one of the active and reputable clone makers picks the relevant ones up. [1] You also get a hit for US5538943 "Use of 1,3-undecadien-5-yne as a perfuming ingredient" but I think that might be the odd one out :D Hi Bob, Thanks for that. Did that go on in place of the feed dog, or was it a separate part? I'm guessing it went on with the slot perpendicular to the needle travel? Thanks.